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MINSK – Belarus said it suspected Russian mercenaries suspected of planning “acts of terrorism” before the August presidential election and called on the Russian ambassador on Thursday for an explanation.
State television on Wednesday broadcast images of more than 30 suspected Russian army contractors detained near Minsk after the government said they had won reports that more than 20 fighters had entered the country to destabilize it before the 90 August elections.
Belarus opened an investigation on “the preparation of terrorist acts” on Thursday and said that some of the captured men had already confessed to orchestrating a revolution.
Minsk’s handling of the scenario threatens to worsen already strained relations with Russia, a classic ally, who has yet to explain his own position.
Arrests are the latest turn in an electoral crusade that has represented the greatest challenge in years for President Alexander Lukashenko, who has the Eastern European country with an iron hand for more than a quarter of a century.
Authorities on Thursday announced new security measures for the campaign occasions, amid fears that Lukashenko may use the alleged plot to accentuate the crackdown on his rivals.
Lukashenko, 65, accused his parties in conflict of colluding with foreign supporters to overthrow him and imprisoned two of his main election rivals before the election, which he is expected to win despite growing opposition to his rule.
The secretary of state of the Belarusian Security Council, Andrei Ravkov, told reporters that up to two hundred mercenaries were still in Belarus and were being persecuted by security forces.
Presidential candidate Andrey Dmitriev quoted Ravkov as saying that some of the mercenaries had already confessed to making plans for “a revolution.”
They were trained in the Russian cities of Pskov and Nevel and were more commonly bombers and snipers, Dmitriev told reporters after Ravkov’s assembly.
“We were told that today there are 170 militants in the country, which we already know, trained in subversion activities and snipers,” Dmitriev said. The government has not ruled the closure of the Internet in the country, he said.
State media reported that the detained men were working for Wagner, the personal contractor of Russia’s best-known army. The Kremlin, the Russian Foreign Ministry and a Wagner-affiliated company did not comment. The Russian state denies the mercenaries.
Images of the men’s belongings filmed during his arrest showed Sudanese currency and a Sudanese phone card. This led some experts to recommend that the men would possibly have traveled through Minsk towards Africa.
Lukashenko, a former collective farm manager, is pressured by critics for what they say is his irresponsible handling of COVID-19 and the economy and alleged human rights violations.
He says he has secured years of economic and political stability and that the state covers many of the fundamental desires of the population as it did in the Soviet era. A senior Belarusian security official said 14 of the alleged mercenaries had spent time in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops had been fighting Russian-backed fighters in a clash since 2014.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Kiev would extradite suspected Russian mercenaries. Belarus and Ukraine agreed to strengthen their border controls following the arrests.
After weeks of sustained street protests, the opposition supported Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of one of the jailed election candidates, who replaced her husband after his arrest.
She said Thursday that she would continue her campaign.
The Japan Times LTD. All rights are reserved.